When the Louvre and Vacheron Constantin announced their perfect match and future creative projects in 2019, it was hard to imagine what was to follow.
Rather accustomed to literal representations of its treasures from the past (between Uniqlo t-shirts, Swatch watches or Mona Lisa printed by Jeff Koons on monogrammed Louis Vuitton bags), the museum offers itself here an arty variation that draws from the very roots of these fragments of history.
Because, unlike its classic Métiers d'Art watches, the Cabinotiers, Vacheron Constantin was not content to give substance to figurative works, the orchestration was even more complex.
It was with four hands, alongside experts from the departments of ancient civilizations, that the in-house golden hands began to flesh out these iconic silhouettes with a host of details as symbolic as they are singular.
We thus find a rain of chosen hieroglyphs or cuneiform writings on the glasses of the dials of the sphinx of Tanis or the lion of Darius, when an invocation found on a Roman stele in Algeria comes to spice up the homage to the Emperor Augustus.
ancient tempo
Vacheron Constantin x Le Louvre in 4 stages
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow05 photos
See the slideshow05 photos
A reading on several levels which is coupled with in-depth technical work to reproduce in stone marquetry the Roman mosaics, the crossovers of Mesopotamian bricks or the Egyptian wings.
Added to this are figures chiselled in gold or grisaille enamel for an even more striking relief.
All produced in five pieces per watch, and given the sold-out of production announced by Vacheron Constantin on its production until at least 2025, it is a safe bet that these rare specimens have already flown into secrecy. private collections...
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Behind the scenes of the creation of the Sphinx of Tanis.
Vacheron Constantin / Press Photo